Entries Tagged 'Levity' ↓

Lucy wrote a beautiful post recently about cooking for her dog. Another way to feed the dog something fancy is to get a new job that, while fabulous, leaves a lot less time and mental energy for cooking. Then the dog gets a bowl of stinking goat shoulder that would have been a curry had you remembered you bought it last week.

Coming soon, posts on “nutritious dinners the kids will love, and in only 15 minutes!” Just as soon as I work out how to do that.

I’m fasting today in preparation for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Ew, I know. No symptoms, (thanks for asking!) it’s just a preventative measure given my family history.

Anyhow, if you are a really good cook, and all you’re allowed to eat for a day is “clear salty soup”, you can still have a really nice lunch made from your light Chinese stock which you infused with a shiitake, some more chicken and herbs last night.

Unlike much design and architectural photography, Dwell always features the people who live in the spaces. As my friend Nigel points out, the lighting necessary for the architecture pron angle doesn’t really suit the humans. Fortunately for us all, the brilliant site Unhappy Hipsters takes images from Dwell and other similar mags, and adds a little touch of humanity:

Their relationship was based on preparing absurdly complicated recipes using overpriced ingredients.

I burnt myself cooking, didn’t I? While I love a good sore, both my boss and my partner have been turned into squirming schoolgirls at the sight of my horrid blisters. If you’re made of stronger stuff, there’s a picture under the fold.

Despite the obvious qualification of my ability to look marvellous in finger bandages and the earnest protestations of my niece and nephew, I will not be applying to be on the next series of Masterchef. I think it’s highly unlikely that a fat 38 year old mother of young sons who derives great personal joy from cooking and who lives in a suburban regional area will win two years on the trot. If you’ve got a zingier profile, you can apply here.

You get home from work and start rushing to get the dinner on and you suddenly imagine George Columbaris at your elbow. “How are you going there? You’ve got TWENTY MORE MINUTES! Those SPUDS SHOULD BE PEELED by now!!!”

Your twelve-year-old starts insisting on helping with the dinner (Can I say W00t!), and comes out with stuff like, “The onions are caramelising nicely while the sausage has taken on a whole new dimension of flavour.”

You’re watching a cookie-cutter Fremantle Media reality show with a cast of characters who are holed up in a house and one is voted off each week, crying and the word “journey” mandatory – in other words, a massive yawning cliche – and although you’re feeling a bit dirty, you can’t look away.

Who else has been watching Masterchef? What are your impressions? Triumphs, disasters, heroes, villains? Has it changed any kitchen routines in your household? Anyone suddenly taken to wearing cravats?

I would like to publicly thank all those people who buy cast iron skillets, don’t find out how to look after them, use them once and give them to the op shop whereupon I buy them for a dollar each, clean them with steel wool and hot water, season them and happily cook with them forever after.

Bless them all. The little one I bought this week, the big one about six months ago. We don’t bother to put them away. They just live on the hotplates and get used every day.

I work for a peak organisation that supports early childhood services. As a result, I spend some of my time counselling them about food handling and other issues, and there are quite a few things they have to watch that those of us with home kitchens don’t need to bother about – for instance, the new National Food Standard will restrict the serving of luncheon meats to vulnerable persons (sorry Kirsty, spam is out for kids).

However, sometimes anxiety about hygiene just goes a bit far. I happen to know, for instance, that some early childhood educators refrain from using toilet rolls in kiddy craft, on the basis that they are a hygiene risk (I hasten to add that sensible people have concluded that nobody has yet died from their use, and that they are a worthy addition to the craft table). But, in a similar vein, comes a concept which a colleague tells me was reported on the ABC’s New Inventors last night.

It’s a shield that goes over the cake, and stops children’s germs falling on the icing as they blow their candles out.

Because there was no picture on the ABC site, I googled and found a US patented example.

So, an open post about hygiene standards, the lack thereof, and other people’s ridiculous pernicketiness. Fire away!